


The Jackpot Question

by Barkour



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 16:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3074729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The books would think it more romantic if the Bull rushed right back to Dorian, but Dorian thinks it more romantic that the Bull remembered to wash up first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jackpot Question

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, silly bit of New Year's fluff. The title is taken from the song "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" This fic is set in the future-ish. Yes. No? Maybe. Yes. Ish. [waves hand vaguely] Move along.

In the courtyard the Bull clapped his hands and said, “All right, well. Break apart then. Krem’ll get you your pay.”

“Oh, thank you, chief,” said Krem. “You know how I love counting coin.”

Dalish laughed and perched her chin on Krem’s shoulder, to his resignation. 

“No need to ask where you’re haring off to.”

“Lay off the chief with your stinging arrows, apostate.”

Faux-indignant, she pushed off Krem’s shoulder so she might slap it. “Who’s an apostate?”

“Just get the priss to sign up,” suggested Rocky. “We could use a mage.”

“Then I’ll be out of a job,” said Dalish.

“Can he shoot arrows, too?”

“Knock it off,” said the Bull, grinning fondly at this eclectic pack of thieves and rogues, “the lot of you.” He took a playful swipe at Dalish, nearest, who ducked nimbly and took advantage of this retreat to grab onto Krem again. 

“Just get out of here,” Krem said, staggering with Dalish a sudden weight on his shoulder. “I’ll take care of ‘em. Ingrates!”

“Louts!” yelled Stitches.

“Boss,” said Grim, and he tossed the Bull a coin: a wash token, payment for the small bath house set up in the mountain wing.

The Bull caught it in his hand then bounced it twice off his palm before closing his fingers around the coin. Grim, he saluted with a finger to his horn.

“Going soft, you,” scoffed Dalish.

“Chargers never go soft,” said the Bull in Grim’s defense.

“Not any softer than your belly,” said Krem, smiling as he tucked his hand to Dalish’s shoulder to push her away. “Scat, chief. We’re tired of the look of you. Aren’t we, lads?”

There was some disagreement on that front, but the Bull scatted anyway. Never let it be said he wasn’t a people person.

*

The heat from the bath clung to his skin till he left the mountain rooms for the corridors made of quarried stone. It had gone entirely by the time the Bull got to the library.

Dark outside then, the winter sun sunk to bed. A few odd torches lit the library, only as necessitated. So the Bull followed the lights through the dark stacks, listening to the soft rustlings of crows as they moved in their sleep, to find his spoil.

He was bent over a table, consulting two books at once. Cross-referencing, rather, with the smaller of the books dwarfed by the page of the other. As Dorian read, his fingers ticked across the pages. 

Once Dorian had accused the Bull of magecraft. “How else can someone with your bulk move so quietly?”

“I’m not quiet,” the Bull said mildly. He’d shook his left leg then so that the brace jingled. “You just don’t pay enough attention to me.”

“Ha!” Dorian had said. “As if you’re starved for company. You! The single most insufferably flirtatious vagabond I’ve ever had the egregious misfortune—”

The Bull reached for Dorian, snaking his arm about Dorian’s trim waist. “Whoa, slow down, Dorian.” Lightly he tugged, and willingly Dorian came to straddle the Bull’s thighs. “Use smaller words so my barbaric brain can keep up.”

“Let me see if I can’t make it easier for you,” Dorian said, sliding his hands up the Bull’s arms to cup his nape. “Your ego’s nearly as spoiled as your cock.”

“Aw, Dorian,” the Bull murmured against Dorian’s lips, “you romantic. You’ll ruin a guy for anyone else, you keep talking like that.”

“Serve you right,” Dorian had said, “if you should wander bereft once I’ve moved on,” and then he’d taken the Bull’s mouth wetly, and the Bull wasn’t quiet at all.

Now the Bull considered Dorian at his work. He’d dressed thickly in a coat, despite the telltale glow of the glass balls heated through magic to warm this section of the library. They were studded, hung from the air at regular intervals. 

His fingers stilled upon a line. Frowning, Dorian bit at his lower lip. He tapped his nail against the page. The constant, steady beating of the Bull’s heart grounded him.

Carefully the Bull stepped forward on his left foot. The jingling caught Dorian’s attention. He looked up quickly, so quickly some small curl of his hair fell along his brow. The end of his mouth tugged. 

“Bull,” he said.

“Dorian,” said the Bull.

Dorian brushed at that curl. His hand passed before his face. The rings on his finger glinted. Then he lowered his hand to spread his fingers over the page, and he was composed again.

“You’re back early,” he said. “Crushing the baron’s little insurrection wasn’t the fete you hoped for?”

The Bull made a show of sighing as he crossed the floor. With each step he took, Dorian inched his chin higher. His fingers spread incrementally wider; the parchment began to protest.

“What,” said the Bull woefully, “no falling into my arms? No passionate demands that I kiss the sense out of you?”

“Senseless to want you to kiss me.”

“Ah, but you do want me to kiss you. Admit it.” The Bull set his hand down on the larger book, his fingers arched to support his weight as he leaned against the table. His thumb nearly brushed against Dorian’s wrist. “You missed me.”

“I’ll admit only that I expected you to arrive two days hence,” said Dorian. “You’ll rip the pages like that. Honestly,” he grumbled, “you’re impossible.” 

His hand moved. He covered the Bull’s fingers with his own, pressing gently but irresistibly against the knuckles so that the Bull would lay his fingers flat. One by one the Bull allowed Dorian’s victories.

“Did you bathe?” asked Dorian. He was looking at the Bull’s neck, the creases in his skin yet damp. 

The Bull was looking at Dorian: his square face, his strong cheeks, the creases he had there beside his eyes. Slowly the Bull moved his thumb under Dorian’s hand, stroking at his palm.

“Mm,” said the Bull. “Yeah.”

“Perhaps it would have been more romantic,” said Dorian dryly, glancing at the Bull, “if you had rushed to find me the moment you got back.” A glance, but Dorian’s gaze stopped: he met the Bull’s eye.

“Maybe,” said the Bull. “Thought you didn’t like romance.”

“I don’t,” said Dorian.

“But you like baths,” said the Bull.

“Yes, imagine that,” said Dorian, “a person who appreciates hygiene. You’d think I expected unicorn hairs in my soup rather than basic seemliness.”

“Dorian,” said the Bull. “Do you think I’m seemly?”

“You’re certainly something,” said Dorian. He lifted a hand from his side to grip the Bull’s arm. “You certainly seem to be looming.”

“Is that so?”

“I just said so,” Dorian murmured, “so yes.”

The Bull turned his hand over, so that he could hold Dorian’s hand, their fingers to each other’s palms. He bowed. His lips were at Dorian’s temple. 

“Tell me to stop.”

“Is that what you want?” Dorian asked. He squeezed both hands: the one against the Bull’s biceps, the other against his wrist. “For me to tell you to stop? To cast you out into the night?”

He’d shifted, twisting just so, that when he spoke his lips brushed at the Bull’s jaw. The Bull stroked his fingers along the tendons so strong and firm along the inside of Dorian’s wrist.

“Tell me to go, and mean it.”

“All right,” said Dorian. His lips pursed. Very, very softly he kissed the corner of the Bull’s jaw, the wetness of his mouth lingering on the stubble and rough skin. “Go on.” 

The Bull closed his hand around Dorian’s wrist and bent to kiss him properly, hotly so that Dorian’s mouth fell open and his breath caught and he gripped the side of the Bull’s head. Dorian’s thumb pressed to his ear.

“You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

Dorian was without an answer for a time, his mouth too full for speech. Tipping his head, he pulled at the Bull by a horn, drawing him somehow closer. The books whispered, and Dorian, swearing, pulled out of the kiss to close them. 

“Didn’t what?” asked the Bull again, patiently as Dorian stacked the small book on top of the large book and then dropped both to the floor.

“What?” snapped Dorian. Then he paused. “Oh. That you didn’t rush back on my account.”

The Bull laughed noisily through his nose. “That’s exactly what you want me to say.”

“As if I needed your—” 

Dorian made a fluttering motion with his hand that brought his fingers shivering up along the Bull’s chest. The ghostly scrape of his fingernails, that stuck in the Bull’s sternum. It gritted in his bones.

“Stroking,” said Dorian finally. His hand settled on the Bull’s clavicle.

“Mm, but you do,” said the Bull. “Need stroking.”

He stooped slightly to hook his hands under Dorian’s thighs and heft him up onto the table. “It’s astonishing,” Dorian was saying, “how my standards have lowered.”

“One day you’ll find someone who loves listen to your moaning,” the Bull comforted him. “Some weird asshole who gets hot and heavy just thinking about how you’ll put the books away before you get nasty.”

“Oh, no,” said Dorian. “Stop. It’s too much.”

The Bull shifted backwards and Dorian caught him by the belt loops. Tugging, he pulled the Bull to him again.

“I didn’t mean stop _that_ ,” said Dorian. “And after you’ve bathed. What a waste.”

“That’s what gets you going, huh?” The Bull, still leaning out, let Dorian sidle forward to the edge of the table, his knees pinching at either side of the Bull’s waist. “Some guy who scrubs behind his ears.”

“I told you,” said Dorian, “my standards have just _plummeted_. Are you going to kiss me or do I have to start taking ravens hostage?”

“‘vints,” said the Bull, “got holes where your hearts ought to be.”

“Show me yours,” said Dorian, “I’ll show you mine,” and then he began to laugh, helpless before the awfulness of his own joke. He was laughing still when the Bull kissed him; he went on laughing long after that. The warmth of his mouth, the familiar scratch of his mustache, the muted vibration as his laughter quieted and settled in his throat and chest: all these things made the decision to push forward with the mission worthwhile.

*

“Why did you hurry back?”

Curled at the Bull’s back with the Bull resting his head upon Dorian’s stomach, Dorian petted the Bull’s horns, stroking them as he might a cat. 

“Wanted to see if I could give Mother Giselle a real shock.”

“She’s elsewhere this evening,” said Dorian. “But I commend your devotion to desecrating sacred spaces.”

“Didn’t hear you complaining earlier,” said the Bull.

“You didn’t scrub your ears. Otherwise you would have heard me say I commend you.”

“Huh. Weird,” the Bull said. “Must be I’m just not used to hearing you say nice things to me.”

“Ah,” said Dorian. Briefly he ran his hand along the Bull’s pate, his palm rasping gently across that expanse of bare skin. The Bull’s gut tightened. “Now I know why you rushed back.”

With great care the Bull trailed his claws up the inside of Dorian’s thigh, muscular and brown and trembling yet, same as all of Dorian.

“That big, clever brain of yours finally figured it out?”

“If you’d taken more time, I’m sure you could have come up with a better insult.”

The Bull twisted, rolling over onto his elbows. Incidentally this brought him above Dorian, too. Dorian lowered his lashes then raised them with aching deliberation: but the edge of his smile was soft.

“I’m afraid I’m not used to saying nice things.”

The Bull kissed him again, lingeringly, and Dorian arched beneath him, taking and taking from the Bull’s offering. The heat of him called to the Bull; and the Bull went. Into Dorian’s mouth he said it.

Dorian tugged at the Bull’s lips then let go. “What?”

The Bull said it again then translated: “The new year.”

A frown pulled at Dorian’s brow. “Spring isn’t for another two months.”

The Bull swept sweaty, black tendrils of hair from that furrowed brow. Without seeming awareness Dorian turned his face to the Bull’s touch, luxuriating in each little contact.

“In Par Vollen,” said the Bull, “it’s new year.”

His knee was hurting him then so he turned to lay upon his back beside Dorian. But Dorian rose then to sit half-upright beside the Bull, and he reached for the Bull’s bad knee to unlatch the brace. 

“You know better than to abuse it,” Dorian said. 

The Bull crossed his hands behind his head and watched as Dorian picked at the latches with his long, dark fingers. A very distant impression of a wrinkle marred Dorian’s mouth. The crease would deepen with the years. The Bull wanted, with a frightening, vast longing, to see how deeply that crease would go.

“We mark the new year,” said the Bull, “by speaking the sins of the old year. Accepting our burdens. Letting them go.”

“In Minrathous,” Dorian reflected as he popped the sides of the brace open, “we drink champagne and throw confetti at each other and talk about how wonderful we all are.”

Grunting, the Bull sat up to lift his leg out of the brace. He took the metal framework from Dorian. 

“I’m going to have to put this on again to get back to my rooms.”

“You’d think I’ve never helped a Qunari with a bum knee up the stairs before,” said Dorian.

He would, if the Bull let him, evade it all entirely. The Bull touched his fingers to Dorian’s cheek. Those gold-dusted eyelids fluttered. Dorian’s gaze flicked to the Bull and held.

With ponderous precision the Bull said:

“This year I joined a frigging Inquisition to save the world from a bunch of demons and some crazy asshole ‘vint.”

“Without insulting my people, thank you,” said Dorian. His fingers dug into the Bull’s knee, massaging at the joint.

“Killed ten _fucking_ dragons!”

Dorian said, “May they rot a thousand years,” with feeling.

“And,” said the Bull, and there he stopped, though Dorian continued to work at the Bull’s knee. His thumbs pressed; he pushed hard at the muscle. His gaze remained on the Bull’s face though and Dorian narrowed his eyes as the silence continued.

“And you’re Tal’Vashoth,” said Dorian.

“Gently,” said the Bull.

“When have I ever been gentle?” asked Dorian, squashing the Bull’s knee. “And do you regret it?”

The Iron Bull closed his eye and thought. _How do you know when it starts?_ he had asked Tama, a very long time ago. _How do you know when it isn’t you anymore?_

He thought, too, of the Chargers dead: of his men as they’d laughed at him in the courtyard. 

“No,” said the Bull. “I don’t regret a damn thing. ‘Cause I got my guys.” 

He felt for Dorian. Caught his hand. Covered it. The Bull lifted his eye to Dorian, and Dorian was there, watching the Bull: Dorian, on the precipice.

“Got you, too,” said the Bull.

Dorian looked at the Bull. He swallowed. His jaw shifted. Then he turned his gaze to their hands. He shifted, lacing his fingers with the Bull. Holding the Bull’s hand thusly, Dorian lifted it to press his lips to the Bull’s scar-flecked knuckles.

“So you do,” said Dorian. He kissed the back of the Bull’s thumb, and then he kissed the beating heart in his wrist, and then Dorian set his hand on the Bull’s chest and pushed him down again.

“In Tevinter,” said Dorian, “we have another tradition. To celebrate spring.”

The Bull dropped his hands to Dorian’s waist, his hips, then to his thighs. His skin was warm, still lightly damp, and very predictably, wonderfully familiar. 

“What’s that?” asked the Bull.

“We like to ring it in with a kiss,” Dorian said.

The Bull smiled lopsidedly and stroked Dorian’s naked hip.

“Already done that one, Dory.”

“Call me ‘Dory’ again.”

“Dory,” said the Bull.

“That wasn’t an invitation,” said Dorian.

“Sorry,” the Bull said, “cupcake.”

“I don’t know why I stay,” Dorian said. “I ought to just go back to Tevinter. Start reforming it. I’m not making any progress here.”

The Bull stroked Dorian’s hip again and thought of that long trudge back to Skyhold, through sleet and mud, as Dalish flirted with Krem and Krem pretended not to flirt back, and all the Bull could think of was if Dorian would be there. And Dorian had been there.

“You could do that,” the Bull agreed.

“I will.”

“Will you?”

“Well,” said Dorian, spreading his fingers wide across the Bull’s chest, as if the Bull were a particularly interesting book, “not today. It’s dark out after all. And cold.”

“And you hate the cold,” said the Bull, nodding. “Someone should go with you. Keep you warm.”

“Or maybe I should just wait for summer,” said Dorian.

“Yeah,” said the Bull, “or maybe that,” and he was smiling when Dorian gave him his new year’s kiss at last. It wasn’t the tradition he was used to but the Bull supposed he could learn to appreciate it with time and practice and Dorian cupping the Bull’s face as if to say, welcome home.


End file.
